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Wednesday, May 31, 2017

The Importance of Social and Emotional Learning

Life and work is more than reading and writing and arithmetic. Being able to function well with others in a wide range of situations is extraordinarily important--for many jobs, at least as important--as explicitly cognitive skills. The Future of Children has devoted is Spring 2017 issue to nine articles about "Social and Emotional Learning." After reading through the articles, my sense is that the subject is of potentially enormous importance, and that the state of current knowledge and practice is fragmented and incomplete, with difficulties in deciding what traits to study, at what ages, and how to measure them. Here are a few snippets.

From the the introductory essay by Stephanie M. Jones and Emily J. Doolittle, called "Social and Emotional Learning:
Introducing the Issue:"

"Research increasingly suggests
that social and emotional
learning (SEL) matters a
great deal for important
life outcomes like success
in school, college entry and completion,
and later earnings. This research also tells
us that SEL can be taught and nurtured
in schools so that students increase their
ability to integrate thinking, emotions, and
behavior in ways that lead to positive school
and life outcomes. Although the term social
and emotional learning has been around
for 20 years, we’ve recently seen a rapid
surge in interest in SEL among parents,
educators, and policymakers. ... All 50
states have SEL standards in place at the
preschool level, and four (Illinois, Kansas,
West Virginia, and Pennsylvania) have SEL
standards for kindergarten through 12th
grade. ... We also
know that teachers believe SEL skills can be
taught, although they may not always know
the best way to do so in their classrooms. ... SEL goes by many other names. Common
terms for this set of skills include character
education, personality, 21st-century skills,
soft skills, and noncognitive skills, just to
name a few. ...

"But what are we talking about when it
comes to SEL? Researchers, educators, and
policymakers alike have trouble pinning
down exactly what’s included in this broad
domain—and what isn’t. The popular press
has highlighted a wide array of skills, such
as grit, empathy, growth mindset, social
skills, and more. At its core, SEL involves
children’s ability to learn about and manage
their own emotions and interactions in
ways that benefit themselves and others,
and that help children and youth succeed
in schooling, the workplace, relationships,
and citizenship. To effectively manage
emotions and social interactions requires a
complex interplay of cognitive skills, such as
attention and the ability to solve problems;
beliefs about the self, such as perceptions
of competence and autonomy; and social
awareness, including empathy for others
and the ability to resolve conflicts. ...

"Decades’ worth of research suggests that
something other than academic skills and
content knowledge strongly influences
success in school and beyond. Indeed, SEL
skills may be just as important as academic
or purely cognitive skills for understanding
how people succeed in school, college, and
careers. In addition, preliminary evidence
suggests that SEL skills could be central to
understanding and remediating stubbornly
persistent gaps in achievement defined
by income and racial/ethnic differences. ..."

From the abstract of the article called "SEL Interventions in Early Childhood," by Megan M. McClelland, Shauna L. Tominey, Sara A. Schmitt,
and Robert Duncan:

"Three strategies appear to make interventions more successful, the authors write. First,
many effective SEL interventions include training or professional development for early
childhood teachers; some also emphasize building teachers’ own SEL skills. Second, effective
interventions embed direct instruction and practice of targeted skills into daily activities,
giving children repeated opportunities to practice SEL skills in different contexts; it’s best if
these activities grow more complex over time. Third, effective interventions engage children’s
families, so that kids have a chance to work on their SEL skills both at school and at home.
Family components may include teaching adults how to help children build SEL skills or
teaching adults themselves how to practice and model such skills.

"Are early childhood SEL interventions cost-effective? The short answer is that it’s too soon
to be sure. We won’t know how the costs and benefits stack up without further research that
follows participants into later childhood and adulthood. In this context, we particularly need
to understand how the long-term benefits of shorter, less intensive, and less costly programs
compare to the benefits of more intensive and costlier ones."

From the abstract for "Promoting Social and Emotional
Competencies in Elementary School," by Stephanie M. Jones, Sophie P. Barnes, Rebecca Bailey, and
Emily J. Doolittle:

"But evidence from the most rigorous studies of elementary-school SEL programs is ambiguous.
Some studies find few or no effects, while others find important and meaningful effects. Or
studies find effects for some groups of students but not for others. What causes such variation
isn’t clear, making it hard to interpret and act on the evidence.
What are the sources of variation in the impacts of SEL programs designed for the elementary
years? To find out, Stephanie Jones, Sophie Barnes, Rebecca Bailey, and Emily Doolittle
examine how the theories of change behind 11 widely used school-based SEL interventions
align with the way those interventions measure outcomes. Their central conclusion is that what
appears to be variation in impacts may instead stem from imprecise program targets misaligned
with too-general measures of outcomes. That is to say, program evaluations often fail to
measure whether students have mastered the precise skills the programs seek to impart."

From the abstract for " Social and Emotional Learning Programs
for Adolescents," by David S. Yeager:

"On the positive side, Yeager finds that effective universal SEL can transform adolescents’ lives
for the better. Less encouragingly, typical SEL programs—which directly teach skills and invite
participants to rehearse those skills over the course of many classroom lessons—have a poor
track record with middle adolescents (roughly age 14 to 17), even though they work well with
children.
But some programs stand out for their effectiveness with adolescents. Rather than teaching
them skills, Yeager finds, effective programs for adolescents focus on mindsets and climate.
Harnessing adolescents’ developmental motivations, such programs aim to make them feel
respected by adults and peers and offer them the chance to gain status and admiration in the
eyes of people whose opinions they value."